Dad got my last text (of Lee). So he sent to messages today: “A”, “A”. He’s saying hi. I think he wants me to send a photo of Lee’s rooster. 🤨 Farm boys, both of them. Good to hear from my dad today.

Merry Christmas, Lee. My dad is going to have a field day.

Net is slow, but it’s weather related (wow, that’s shocking; my internet provider gets a pass--for now). But it should be back up again after the rain. I feel energized to work. Or I’m just bored. I get those two emotions mixed up all the time.

Thranduil, however, is never confused...pouty, easily irritated--maybe. Brutally honest and gorgeous, naturally. I’m starting to think this gif should be an advertisement for Spearmint Gum or something. Don't give me any ideas...I actually thought of and was the production executive for a 25 minute film short for AMC in Hollywood alongside The Hollywood Reporter. I’d do it again, too. John Frankenheimer liked it. It was in part about his film “Reindeer Games”.

So I saw my Dad today. I asked him, “Do you want to see Lee,” and he nodded, “Yes.” So I show him this one (and a gif of him with Pandas and one from “Halt and Catch Fire” (this season). After a minute, he says, “He needs a shave”..

That was unexpected. THEN, we had lunch with another man in his ward and his son (who’s a lawyer in town) then I took him to my house. He seemed to know what was going on but it wasn’t until I opened the door and my cat Cairo heard his voice and started to meow wildly. Dad was surprised Cairo remember him. So he sat down and they played for awhile.

Aslan was even somewhat playful.

The saddest part of the day was that dad didn’t remember my house. He didn’t remember buying it for me or the lay-out of the yard. He remembers me and my cats and my car but not the house--though he still wants the yard people to clear out the flower beds and the cut down the vines strangling the large rose bush. That will happen, but he had no memory of the house. Then when I took him back home, he wanted to go back to his “home”--where Gloria lives on the other side of the building and thought that his wife was forcing to live where he didn’t want to be. 

I managed to get him to take a nap and worry about it later--then he called me later thinking Gloria, my stepmother lived with me. I learned he only has two numbers on his new cell phone--mine and his wife. Not even my sister--though he said she’s here and not in the Caribbean. I think he’s fine now. But he thinks he lives at the university he taught chemistry for 36 years. It’s kinda weird sometimes, @fortunatelyclevercandy. He told me he didn’t want me to have children because he said he’d have to take care of them--he still thinks I’m 25.

I told him he was 86 and the year he was born. He forgot that, but not what he used to do and that Lee Pace needs a shave. He did like the part about his farm--because he is a country boy, born in a one-room house that still stands on the land my grandfather owned (and the family still does). His room is littered with photos of the family and few he recognizes as he told me, but if I explained someone, he seemed to remember.

I wasn’t as upset as I thought I should be. I don't know why--I guess it’s because I know his time is limited and my time with him is as well. I won’t be in charge when he dies as I was when my mother died unless the family lose their minds again and I’m forced to be the strong one. But my parents told me since childhood what they want to happen when they die and had prepared me for it since I was four. I think I’ve mourned them both when I learned their illnesses just so when the time came, I would be the one keeping things together @fortunatelyclevercandy.

On my mother’s side, everyone had Cancer or Alzheimer’s. On my father’s side, everyone has had Cancer or Alzheimer’s. You’d think I was an expert by now. I just know what to expect. Mom had Pancreatic Cancer, my grandmother and aunt and Alzheimer’s on my mother’s side. My father is the last of his 13 siblings. The youngest died of cancer and the oldest died of cancer--and she lost her daughter and granddaughter to cancer before she died. I’m afraid I’m getting used to all this death, to be honest. I should though--I’ve been around it since I was three and my great-aunt died. I thought she was sleeping in a box. Someone told me I wrote death well--I write from experience. 

I was there when the life of my mother left her body--I felt her skin grow cold and the stiffness of rigor mortis slowly crept upon her as the monitor attached to her heart become softer and longer between beats until it was heard no more.

Dad had a good day, though--in spite of not knowing much about me other than I’m his “kid” and he thinks I live somewhere else than I do. I love being with my Dad. I almost have to see him some days so I can write. Makes it easier to carry on to the next chapter. Even when I write fantasy, there’s always far more real life in there than anything else. I know how precious time is--though my family has always thought otherwise. I worry I will not see my father before he goes--and some days I don’t want to--I want to be in Scotland and have to come back or not at all. 

When he dies, I will be alone without a parent as I was when I was born and abandoned. When he calls, I’m relieved--even if he doesn’t want to talk to me at the moment. Cannot take any life for granted, @fortunatelyclevercandy. It comes to an end too soon. It is as it begins--in a moment. Time is as much a friend as it is an enemy. We are at its mercy from our first breath to our last. All we can do is live as long as it allows us to and do it well.

Thought I would share something that was shared. Devastatingly handsome Lee Pace. 😊 Hi, @leepace71! 

And now we have Tropical Storm Lee...

Lee has formed over open waters...😳

Back online again--just in time to get ready for an appointment in the morning. Maybe if it holds up I can do some work afterwards...here’s hoping.

Right....here’s hoping. I have a lot more funny stuff for @thegnotesots and @eeveningpostcomics to post on top of book stuff.

Watch it look like this in like 10 minutes...🙄

Going to a movie tomorrow...then lunch. I actually enjoyed “The Dark Tower” last time. This is the person that brought LOTR/Hobbit Toys to a meeting once over my blog @tkwrtrilogy. Yeah, that was interesting. I also have to call Dad afterward for some reason...busy day on top of books, blogs and everything else mixed in there. Kinda cool--lots of activity around The Kingdom of the Woodland Realm Trilogy even with the poor internet. 

I’m half expecting crazy tomorrow--at some point Lee Pace and leeepfrog are going to start getting suspicious with all this tkwrtrilogy activity. That would be really weird considering all the activity around “I am Thranduil” (first chapter of Book II: The Saga of Thranduil). With 6700+ people noticing, I’m even a little nervous right now. I’m pretty sure my manager in L.A. would be all over that.

Oh, I found out St. Croix USVI wasn’t hit too bad by Irma or Jose. That’s good. My sister’s fine and I’m happy about that. Naturally she didn’t think to tell me so I’m slightly perturbed and yet, somehow I just really REALLY want to make sure that she knows about the 6,725 people reached and the one post “Thranduil Everlasting” that had 4,142 people reached. It’s my birthday gift to myself to my dear sisters because they just can’t handle me having any little bit of happiness--it’s like they think somehow everything I do keeps them from doing something! I’m really starting to get sick of that s***, @fortunatelyclevercandy. 

OH, if Lee Pace said “hi”, they would do what they did when Damian Marley said, “hi”...stop talking to me for a few months. Yeah, because “my life makes theirs seem boring”...WHO SAYS THAT to their own sister? That’s been bothering me for months! I don't know why; I just can’t get over my sister saying that to me. Sorry..I can’t get that out of my head. I just think family is everything and I don’t have one. But, I love my readers like family, so it gets me through the hard times.

Anyway, off to bed--have to get up early in the morning (and finally get some sleep). I worked so hard only to not be able to do anything all weekend but hope springs eternal. I’m one of those people that just can’t stay down (I don’t know where that comes from--maybe my mom and dad; maybe Thranduil).

It was a tumultuous weekend in which internet reception was scant at best due to Hurricane Harvey and my heart goes out to the victims, the survivors and to all the heroes rescuing and helping them put their lives back in order as best they can.

On Monday, I will release an updated (and more complete; some things were missing and some characters had incomplete entries) Character Appendix. Some of the characters from Book I will be included (more were added). As it is an on-going thing through the entire trilogy, it will periodically be updated, as I’m on a second book of three (w/two extended versions). This one, will get anyone up-to-date of what's going on right now.

It’s my birthday gift to readers. I haven’t had so much fun since “The Mindy Project” started following Thranduil (tkwrtrilogy) on Twitter (yeah, I don’t know what that was about). Or SIRI--really, I can’t talk to my iPhone anymore.

Let me be totally honest--I’m about as together as Phil with Marmaduke.

Yep. This is more me--with either one of my cats when I bathe them; yes I do bathe cats--start them as kittens and they’ll get used to it and do exactly what Marmaduke does anyway (and I’m thinking about a dog? I need a shrink). Those who can, do stuff I am too uncoordinated to do. I write so I can’t break anything.

I just needed a smile. And what a smile it is. 😉